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Growing In God with Gary Hargrave


Mar 8, 2023

What do you have in your hand that you can give the Lord? Mordecai simply gave of his honesty. He reported what he knew was wrong. Moses just had a staff. The prophet's wife who pleaded with Elijah only had a jar of oil. The lad who gave his food to Yeshua (Jesus) only had a little basket of bread and fish. Yet the Lord used these simple gifts to perform great miracles. Your personal walk with God, your commitment to do what is right, your gift, no matter how small, is all God needs to make a miracle.

 

Show Notes: The events that transpired during the days of Esther, which we celebrate at the Feast of Purim, saved the Jews from annihilation. What was accomplished was truly miraculous, but how it was accomplished is a lesson for us. The miracle happened because of simple human actions. Mordecai was not trying to be someone special when he informed the king of the plot against him. He simply did the right thing, and his actions ended up being the foundation of the miraculous deliverance of the Jewish people.

 

The Lord asked Moses, “What is in your hand?” All Moses had was a simple wooden staff, but God used it to bring about the deliverance of Israel. When Yeshua needed to feed a hungry multitude, a boy offered the only food he had, which was a few loaves of bread and fish. That simple gift became the basis for the miraculous feeding of the five thousand. A widow only had a jar of oil to give to Elijah, but God multiplied that oil until it was enough to pay her debt and sustain her and her family for the rest of their lives.

 

As we go through the events of our lives, there are times when we are in need of God’s help, but He does not seem to be visibly or physically there. Many times we look for miraculous signs, or we look for divine intervention, but our release often does not happen in the way we expect. It happens, as it did with Mordecai, through our own actions and out of our own moral character as we try to live our lives as God is leading us. It comes down to something very simple. What you have in your hand, what you have to give, no matter how insignificant in your own eyes, can initiate a miracle.

 

Key Verses:

 

       Esther 2:21–23. “The plot became known to Mordecai and he told Queen Esther, and Esther informed the king in Mordecai’s name.”

       Esther 6:1–14. “It was found written what Mordecai had reported.”

       Esther 7:1–10. “They hanged Haman on the gallows which he had prepared for Mordecai.”

       Esther 8:1–2. “The king took off his signet ring which he had taken away from Haman, and gave it to Mordecai.”

       Esther 9:1–3. “The Jews themselves gained the mastery over those who hated them.”

       1 Corinthians 15:57–58. “Your toil is not in vain in the Lord.”

       John 6:5–14. “There is a lad here who has five barley loaves and two fish.”

       Exodus 4:1–4. “The Lord said to him, ‘What is that in your hand?’ And he said, ‘A staff.’”

       2 Kings 4:1–7. “Your maidservant has nothing in the house except a jar of oil.”

 

Quotes:

 

       “What we give, what we do with our hands, what actions we take can be what God uses down the road to perform a miracle.”

       “What we have may seem like nothing. It may seem like a dead staff, but you put it in God's hands, and it becomes a powerful element to bring about the miracle deliverance that He is looking for.”

       “Our labor is not in vain, and the little that we have can be the source of a miracle in God's hands.”

 

Takeaways:

 

1.    Purim is a story about natural acts on a human level that result in a miraculous deliverance. How does the natural level ever in our minds produce the miracle that we need or that the world needs? Yet that is the lesson of Purim. It is a lesson we should understand every day that the little things we do may seem insignificant and certainly not enough when we offer them to the Lord. But they are all God needs to bring miracle deliverance.

2.    Many Christians serving the Lord struggle with satan’s accusations: “What you're doing is in vain. It won’t produce anything. It won’t accomplish anything for you, for the Lord, or for the Kingdom.” That is a lie! What you have, what you are, and what you are doing is more important to the creation and to the building of God's Kingdom than you can imagine.

3.    Do not despise what you have to offer. It is enough for God to perform miracles. No matter how difficult it may seem, your labor is not in vain. Your life is not in vain. Your gift is not in vain. Go ahead, give the Lord your loaves, your staff, your oil. Let Him create the miracle.